NOISE/MUSIC

Russolo took noise to be an indication of life, liveliness, creativity and the unexpected.(Noise/Music-A History, Paul Hegarty,2007)

SAMPLE & HOLD : hassler / butcher

Purchased from artist/musician Jason R. Butcher about a week ago, Hopelessly.Convoluted Agitated.Elements, a demanding statement arising from chaotic synthesis techniques realized with the use of a pair of Buchlas and possibly an EMS Synthi, is an ear-wretching statement of sonic intention that bites into you and never lets go. Patterns poke their heads out from a sea of feedback loops that chisel and jab at you with what seems like malevalent intent. As patterns develop to speak in an arcane language similiar to the linear rantings of painter Cy Twombly's chaotic expressions, the listener, tangled in these agitated elements, is awe-struck by the negative beauty of man/machine. SUPPORT THE ARTIST! http://fastheadache.blogspot.com/

Hassler/Butcher - ConSec (EC: 34X 'OTHER PICTURE NOISE PROBLEM') from Jason R. Butcher on Vimeo.

DRONE-SCAPE

SAMPLE & HOLD : morton subotnick

Without the use of a standard chromatic keyboard, Morton Subotnick's 1967 Silver Apples of the Moon and the next year's The Wild Bull are powerfully influencial examples of the emphatically expressive potential of early analogue electronic musical instruments. Listening to both of these works then we could hear an unknown future...Keith Fullerton Whitman's analogue synth explorations, Autechre's rythmic displacements, and Carlos Giffoni's analogue noise voyages among many...Morton Subotnick's early masterpieces are indeed classics! Thanks to Donald Buchla!

NEW FOLKTEK SITE

I recommend that you take a look at the new Folktek site just up and running. No longer faceless artists, Ben Houston and Arius Blaze are pictured, items are correctly identified, pictures and videos are wonderful and plentiful. Many of my one of a kind Folktek instruments/works of art are pictured in all their aesthetic beauty. Spend a protracted amount of time there, browse the numerous categories of instruments, and listen to the astounding sound samples. Purchase a piece of Folktek sound art and support the artist! http://www.folktek.com/

ANTILIQUEFACTIONIST

With a title borrowed from the text of Williams Burrough's Naked Lunch, this improv, all buzzing bee-like sound swells and resonance from a Bugbrand Weevil processed through a ::VTOL:: Corvax captures a mood not unlike the slow movements in some Mahler symphonies, a slow prodding ever forward moving path toward the unknown...Antiliquefactionist, indeed.

MORE AURAL DESIRE

I'm the lucky owner of this Serge Creature/Seq A combo. I'd love to see/hear these devices duke it out with the Buchla 200e...now there's a dream match-up!

AURAL OBJECTS OF DESIRE

While the Buchla 200e is expensive, it provokes an immediate Pavlovian response in those of us who not only respect Don Buchla's place in the evolving history of electronic music, but are all too aware of this device's potential...the chances of sonic nirvana seem all the more closer, though our wallets are emptier! This analogue/digital hybrid, a product of the west coast school of synth design, is reputed to be able to generate sounds no other synth(or anything else!)can produce...and I believe it! Pictured are a couple of variations in module configuration of the Buchla 200e System #2.

RECENT KEGEL DEVICE

My brother recently bought a Serge TKB(touch keyboard), incorporating it into a custom-built(by him) wood cabinet along with his Serge Creature/Seq A combo. What a beautiful dystopian sound-making device! A tangled nest of banana cables has ensued suggesting the sound-morphing abilities of this mighty coming together of monstrous machines. Go to his blog http://thissecondsleep.blogspot.com/ to see it.

COMMERCIALS

This first in a series of approximately 1 minute improvs, Commercial #1 suggests the vitality of economy in the production of electronic music and the arts overall. This open-ended series, inspired by The Residents COMMERCIAL ALBUM, presents me with the opportunity to distill my sound and enhance the various parts that make up the whole, thereby hopefully finding the essence of "the sound." Enjoy these short sketches; sometimes I may inadvertently have an sonic epiphany!

DARK VISION

Armed with my Serge Creature/Seq A combo, a number of ::VTOL:: Cramola/Volfram sample loops, and an Alesis Ineko, I found myself spewing forth this 7 am exercise in insectoid hardware molestation!

EVEN HERE

SAMPLE & HOLD : software expressions

Using Iannis Xenakis' UPIC system for graphical sound synthesis, Haswell & Hecker produce a masterpiece of musical expression that finds its genesis in software only. No other instrument is used; none is needed. Using densely packed pencil drawings produced by both artists(in the vein of Sol Lewitt's beautiful pencil wall drawings), the UPIC system literally "draws" the sound, producing a mayhem that is at once playfully continuous and transient. Blackest Ever Black, while suggesting a profound morbidity, is, in spite of its frigid mathematic mother, a work of great playful overwhelming joy.

On the other hand, To Rococo Rot's abc123, a departure for them in that it is wholely laptop generated, does not express the whimsy it is proported to express. To my ears this work presents a nicely measured argument between a cold abstract sensibility and a more ear-friendly electro concern. Noise mingles with comforting sequences, walking the tightrope over potential sonic dissolution(just barely) and pleasing aural security. At just twenty minutes, it left me yearning for more.

THE INTERNATIONAL

In classic Orson Welles style, The International opens with a murder; we have no idea how or why but we are drawn into this rainy Berlin movie opening. So begins a movie that is so breath-takingly unconcerned with commercial potential that the casual viewer unconcerned with cinema-art, but rather two hours of movie cliche to sleep to or brainless explosions may be puzzled at first. But there is more - the leading man, Clive Owen is simply a dirty, bloody dissheveled mess; Naomi Watts is no shrinking violet who should be Owen's love interest, but in the end, simply disappears. Essentially the primary antagonist, an international banking concern is so all-powerful they seem to know everything; greed and corruption and world-wide conflict and arms sales are the rules of the corporation. Armin Mueller-Stahl, a bank operative, sums up the film's idea fixe, "...do you know the difference between truth and fiction?...fiction has to make sense."

In a homage the Orson Welles' "The Lady from Shanghai" there is a shoot-out at the Guggenheim Museum during a video installation utilizing mirrored glass that contemporizes the famous gun-play in the circus house of mirrors at that film's end. Beautifully shot and edited, The International is an uncompromising film that is artful and entertaining reflecting the director's knowing art-making practices.

SERGIAN LOGIC

SAMPLE & HOLD : maurizio bianchi + saverio evangelista / micromal sonorities

With cover art that suggests microscopic activities that remain sub rosa to most of us, Micromal Sonorities four tracks, all beginning with the pre-fix "micro," continue in a vein similar to MB's most recent drone inflected work, all machine bell-like drone populated with scattered microscopic events. Esplendor Geometrico's Saverio Evangelista keeps a very low profile, except on the last track. "Microcosm" where some percussive noise jabs are apparent.
This is a challenging work, but worth the effort, its simplicity evolving into a complex statement.